Nato Asked To Intervene Directly In Kosovo Crisis

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia — The top political leader of Kosovo's ethnic Albanians and Albania's prime minister appealed Friday for direct NATO intervention in the province.

"NATO should undertake all possible measures to prevent further massacres and protect the people of Kosovo," Ibrahim Rugova told a news conference in Pristina, the capital of the southern Serbian province. Ethnic Albanians outnumber Serbs in Kosovo by about 9-1.

In Tirana, Albanian Prime Minister Fatos Nano told air force pilots: "We ask that the alliance exerts pressure progressively until a final solution to the crisis is found, even if that means using force against violence."

Ignoring NATO's show of force Monday in the skies over the Balkans, Serbian leaders have been reinforcing their army and special police forces in the province, estimated by NATO sources at 45,000 to 50,000.

Serb forces have sealed the border with Albania, cutting off an escape route for refugees, while reportedly continuing to attack border villages they say are havens for the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army. There also were reports that Serb troops had ventured into Albania.

Convoys of armored vehicles also have been seen taking positions along a main north-south artery between Pristina and Prizren, near the border with Macedonia.

The ethnic Albanians' Kosovo Information Center, close to Rugova, said Serb forces attacked nine villages Friday. The center also reported three more people dead in western Kosovo.

Meanwhile, the Kosovo Liberation Army said its attacks will continue and warned the international community to "move on from words to deeds" in pressuring Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to stop the Serb attacks.

In Moscow, a senior Russian general warned against NATO intervention. Col.-Gen. Leonid Ivashov was quoted by Itar-Tass news agency as saying:

"(NATO action in Kosovo without UN support) would lead to the start of a new Cold War. . . . Europe does not want to go back to where we were a few years ago, but someone is trying to push it there and it's not Russia," he said.

"There are still a thousand ways of securing a peaceful solution to the conflict, and only the 1,001st way is the military option, which we cannot allow."

Russia insists any military action must be approved by the UN Security Council, where it has a veto.

NATO Secretary General Javier Solana declined to comment on the general's remarks, saying the sides needed to work together and consult.

In Brussels, a NATO official dismissed the Russian warning, "Nothing is going to bring the Cold War back."

The official rejected a suggestion that the alliance was getting cold feet about intervention in Yugoslavia, saying it was proceeding with planning for the full range of options.

The Kosovo militants control a large part of the western part of the province. They have dismissed Rugova's efforts to find a peaceful solution.

The NATO flights this week over Albania and Macedonia were intended to prod Serbia to scale down its forces in Kosovo so that negotiations could resume.

The Serbian government insists its deployment is legitimate to combat the separatists.

"All international pressures on Serbia (to withdraw) . . . are a direct help to separatists," Foreign Minister Zivadin Jovanovic was quoted as saying Friday by the official Tanjug news agency.

More than 300 people have died in clashes between Serb forces and separatist fighters in Kosovo since Serb authorities began a crackdown Feb. 28.

Tens of thousands of ethnic Albanians have been driven from their homes.